The stories of Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (Buenos Aires, August 24, 1899–Geneva, June 14, 1986) are treasures, little wonders worth discovering. Those I present today are from his book Ficciones (1944), specifically from the first part, "The Garden of Forking Paths."
Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
One of the schools of Tlön goes so far as to deny time: it reasons that the present is indefinite, that the future has no reality except as present hope, that the past has no reality except as present memory. Another school declares that all time has already passed and that our life is merely the memory or twilight reflection, undoubtedly falsified and mutilated, of an irretrievable process. Another, that the history of the universe—and within it our lives and the faintest detail of our lives—is the writing produced by a subordinate god to communicate with a demon. Another, that the universe is comparable to those cryptographies in which not all symbols are valid and that only what happens every three hundred nights is true. Another, that while we sleep here, we are awake elsewhere, and that thus each man is two men.
* Russell. ( The Analysis of Mind , 1921, page 159) supposes that the planet has been created a few minutes ago, provided with a humanity that “remembers” an illusory past.
We begin with Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius , a story that explores the existence of another world called Tlön. Several unsettling questions linger throughout its pages. Does this other world truly exist? Is it the invention of scholars of our own reality? Is our cosmos destined to become Tlön over the course of strange eons?
The most interesting aspect of the story is its numerous layers of meaning, both literary and philosophical or metaphysical . Furthermore, Borges's distinctive style, which blurs the lines between reality and fiction , is present in every single word of this unique tale.
The circular ruins
The stranger stretched out beneath the pedestal. He was awakened by the sun high. He found without surprise that the wounds had healed; he closed his pale eyes and slept, not because of the weakness of the flesh but because of the determination of the will. He knew that this temple was the place his invincible purpose required; he knew that the incessant trees had not succeeded in strangling, downstream, the ruins of another auspicious temple, also of gods burned and dead; he knew that his immediate obligation was sleep. […]
In the Gnostic cosmogony, the demiurges knead a red Adam who cannot stand up; as unskillful and rough and elemental as that Adam of dust, he was the Adam of sleep that the magician's nights had fabricated.
If The Circular Ruins stands out for anything, it's for its stunning ending, which, of course, I won't reveal. But the journey between the lines is just as captivating. The story transports us to the ruins of an ancient circular temple, where a man is immersed in meditation. His goal is clear: to dream of another man until he becomes real.
The lottery in Babylon
This silent operation, comparable to that of God, causes all sorts of conjecture. Some abominably insinuate that the Society has not existed for centuries and that the sacred disorder of our lives is purely hereditary, traditional; another judges it eternal and teaches that it will last until the last night, when the last god annihilates the world. Another declares that the Company is omnipotent, but that it only influences minute things: in the cry of a bird, in the shades of rust and dust, in the middreams of dawn. Another, from the mouth of masked heresiarchs, who has never existed and will never exist.
We conclude with "The Lottery in Babylon ," a story that explains how that nation was organized around pure chance. The remarkable aspect of this tale is that it doesn't describe, it suggests ; in this way, it stimulates the reader's imagination and draws them into the story.